Our review of The Fresh Beat Band at Allentown Fair: Not your parents' (or your) children's music

It would be easy to jokingly criticize Nickelodeon TV’s The Fresh Beat Band, which headlined the grandstand at Allentown Fair on Sunday, as playing music that’s simplistic and having lyrics that are juvenile (Get it? A kid’s band with simplistic music and juvenile lyrics. Ha ha.)

Problem is, it wouldn’t be true.

For however youthful the concert was, it wasn’t the children’s music your parents (or you, if you’re the parent reading this) listened to. It was a lot better, and a lot more fun.

The 17 songs that the Fresh Beat Band played were surprisingly developed musically, incorporating elements of rock and hip-hop with the positive-message lyrics you would expect – though not as overbearingly educational as you might expect. The most obvious messages were songs such as “Friends Give Friends a Hand.”

In fact, early in the show it seemed some of it might go over the heads of the elementary-school age kids (accompanied by parents) that made up the small audience of 2,098.

The quartet of Marina (Tara Perry), Shout (Thomas Hobson), Twist (Jon Beavers) and Kiki (Yvette Gonzalez-Nacer) opened the show with “The Fresh Beat Band Theme Song,” then played The Go-Go’s “We Got the Beat,” with Twist adding a rap interlude and four additional dancers adding choreography.

Fresh Beat Band

F

F

Perhaps the explanation for the reserved response came shortly after, when Twist (who essentially acted as the show’s emcee) asked who in the crowd who was attending their first concert. A lot responded they were. So the concert itself was a learning experience.

The show made it easy. Accounting for kids’ attention spans, every song was kept to two minutes and had short acted and sometimes spontaneous (the troupe’s efforts to connect specifically with the fair crowd made the show much better) interludes tied to the songs.

(Some things were funny for adults, too. The absurdity of an occasional flash of wind-up, drum-playing toy monkeys on the big screen, to which the kids would chant “Go monkeys! Go monkeys!” was a hoot.)

The Fresh Beat Band

EMILY PAINE / THE MORNING CALL

The crowd at The Fresh Beat Band at The Great Allentown Fair

The crowd at The Fresh Beat Band at The Great Allentown Fair (EMILY PAINE / THE MORNING CALL)

The set list was almost exclusively from the TV show – 14 of the songs were from The Fresh Beat Band’s 2012 album, with better-known songs such as “A Friend Like You,” on which Twist provided a credible rap and beat-boxing.

Other songs – such as “Music Keeps Me Moving” – were interactive. “That’s what music’s about,” Twist told the crowd.

By the time the group sang “Freeze Dance” seven songs into the set, most of the kids were participating in the start-and-stop dancing.

Unfortunately, during that song a rain shower hit – in an example of the spontaneous stage chatter, Twist said, “I think we got mixed up and did a rain dance instead.”

After the song “Bananas,” just 27 minutes into the show, there was a 20-minute break, which fair officials said was a scheduled intermission, but which seemed timed to the shower. The show resumed shortly after the rain stopped.

When it did, it seemed re-energized – as did the audience.

“Are you ready to rock in the rain?” Twist asked, and the band played one of its best-known songs, “Just Like a Rock Star,” which had most children dancing. Same with “Reach For The Sky” and the really fun and interactive “Loco Legs” – with the kids shouting out references to the series episode of the same name.

After just 22 minutes, the second half of the show closed with “Here We Go,” which was every bit as good and developed a song as Taylor Swift’s new single “Shake It Off,” and a confetti blast.

The encore was The Beatles’ “Twist and Shout” and a second blast of confetti, then out with the show’s closing song, “Great Day.”